Latest Non-Partisan Opinion: President Trump and Russ Vought Unlawfully Steal from Our Children

WASHINGTON — Today, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued another impoundment decision. After investigating the withholding of appropriated funding at the Department of Health and Human Services for the Head Start Program, GAO confirmed what we already knew: President Trump and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought’s attacks on American families and early childhood learning programs are unlawful.

This decision upholds the intent of the Congress and the President who passed annual appropriations Acts, including appropriations to provide early learning opportunities to preschoolers from economically disadvantaged families.

“Working class, middle class, and vulnerable families are struggling with the cost of living. Instead of addressing this crisis, President Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought made it worse by unlawfully stealing critical preschool and Head Start funds for states across the country,” said House Appropriations Committee and Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee Ranking Member DeLauro. “It does not matter how long these funds were frozen. The chaos and uncertainty of illegally withholding these funds is costly and hurts the hundreds of thousands of families that dependon Head Start.Head Start helps young children build the most basic and fundamental skills to begin their education—an education that is vital to reaching the American Dream. That is why this program has been supported by both Democrats and Republicans since it was created and must be shielded from President Trump and Russ Vought’s lawlessness.”

“Russ Vought is behind the illegal stealing of congressionally directed funds and must be removed from his position. He has orchestrated a lawless upheaval of the entire federal government based on his deluded and debunked views of government, and of the law,” DeLauro continued. “Russ Vought is an unelected bureaucrat, much like those he professes to detest, and he has decided that his views, and his priorities, are superior to the priorities, directives, and lawful decisions of the Democratic and Republican representatives in the United States Congress. He wants to upend the bipartisan appropriations process. And he certainly does not concern himself with the plight of the American people. He has shown time and again that he is willing to break the law and hurt Americans in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. He must be stopped.” 

In April, Ranking Member DeLauro and Vice Chair Murray first released a joint tracker on the funds President Trump and Russ Vought are stealing from American communities. This tracker—the first of its kind—put a spotlight on the frozen Head Start funds and helped put pressure on the Trump administration to release these resources. See the updated tracker here.

Ranking Member DeLauro has been sounding the alarm on impoundment since President Trump was reelected. In December 2024, she released this fact sheet laying the groundwork on President Trump’s uninformed and unconstitutional impoundment plan.

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